I am sunburnt and exhausted after spending the day at the Danish Dressage Championships in Broholm (where they just hosted the European Young Riders Championships the week before). 

I will write up a proper report but just want to say WOW! Some amazing horses and riding, and of course some not so amazing horses and riders. But the good stuff is what stays in mind, so my poor horses are going to have one inspired Eiren in the saddle tomorrow! Wohoo! 

Finally we're coming in to the weekend and I feel like I have a minute to sit and catch up! It's been super crazy busy, and I'm still multi-tasking, writing as I watch the Hickstead Grand Prix CDI live-stream (5* Exquis World Dressage Masters starts tomorrow!); I have to give a YAHOO to Catherine Haddad and Cadillac for her second place finish! 

Last weekend I made a quick drive to Germany. I spent Thursday night in Münster and just happened to be there when Ingrid was having a "New Lorry Party!" She was celebrating her new, gorgeous horse van sponsored by Böckmann. Wowsers, what a machine! It was great to see Ingrid, Carmen, and almost everyone else from the stables. Ingrid inspires me as always! My great friend Sabine put me up for the night and then helped me get some other business done Friday morning before I drove off to Verden. 

I met an old US client  Becky, and her husband Nick, at the Hanoverian auction in Verden. They had already been there for the whole week and so we started right away looking at the horses on Becky's short-list. She's got a great eye for quality horses, so I was impressed with each of the geldings we looked at. 

This auction was already busier than the May auction, with many people checking out the collection. There were some great riders and some not-so-good riders trying out all types of horses, sometimes very inappropriate matches. I saw two riders hit the dirt, one took the horse down with her!  It's pretty intimidating to hop on  a completely strange horse in that situation, and I'm always glad when I dismount by my own choice. 

Becky had help from an American agent in Germany, Kate Hauser, to look at horses outside the auction. Saturday morning we went to see one more youngster, a lovely 3 year old gelding with lots of talent for the future. Then after a lunch break it was auction time! We were all a little nervous as Becky's favorite was in the last quarter of the horses; if she didn't get him there were few horses left as "backup."

With the help of a few drinks for the nerves and the Danish liaison for the verband, Mads Mikkelsen helping with the bidding process, Becky ended up with the one her heart was set on! We had some (more) drinks to celebrate, lot of hugs for the new pony, and then a fairly early night as we all had to get on with things in the morning. 

This is my second time at the auction with clients and I think I'm becoming addicted. There are so many good horses, and it's easy to try them, to know their vet reports, and to see their characters in what may be the most stressful environment they will ever be in! Like the last time, I was smitten with a couple horses that I thought I needed. One in particular was a little crazy and went for a very low price, but I saw talent that just needed patience and time to develop. There are always very good investment horses to develop and then resell at a later date; I know this will be part of my future business plan.

I left Verden at 4:15 in the morning as I had 9 horses to ride back home in Denmark. Morten is away so the horses are all mine for the next week still. Busy, busy!

Well, the horse show was a FAIL. 

What with it being Denmark and all, we had crappy, terrible weather; non-stop heavy rain for a few days made the footing at the horse show a nightmare. Even with it looking terrible, the classes were full with very few scratches, so we decided to give it a go.

I took Double Up in the "M" class Monday and it sucked. Double Up tried so hard to be good, as usual, but in those conditions there was nothing to be done. There were HUGE puddles throughout the arena and very slick spots as well as deep and mucky spots. In one fine example, we came through the corner to do a line of changes and he really slipped and lost his balance; before he could really get his feet back together we came upon Lake Silkeborg and baby hit the brakes. I did get one change in my line of five… 

Despite my specifically riding him outside through puddles the days before, the entire test was peppered with attempted halts. I can't blame him though, since it was almost impossible to get him forward enough to be in front of my leg, he didn't feel like I was doing anything constructive up there. 

We all decided that was going to be the last showing for us that weekend. I applaud the other competitors that made it through the rest of the classes, but for me and my employers, it's just not worth risking the safety of our ponies. Besides, one pair of white breeches are now polka-dotted with mud stains, I'm happy to save the others. 

So instead it's been a slightly more relaxing few days at home, just riding my horses and having fun. Of course the sun has come out the last two days, but I'm still happy with our decision to scratch. There will be other shows and while we wait to get the next St George and Intermediare classes started, we will keep thinking of the Grand Prix at home. That's fun enough.

It's a busy week in horse world, with lots of show reports coming in from various North American locations, then there's that little show in Aachen, Germany. I was lucky enough to go twice over the past years  to Aachen, and wish I could be there again this year. However, with tickets selling out quickly for the Totilas extravaganza, there was no chance.

So instead of spectating I will instead be showing this week at our local Silkeborg Rideklub competition. Just five minutes drive down the road, this is a week-long event; dressage starts today and runs through Wednesday, and then jumping is from Thursday till Sunday. For some reason Double Up was wait-listed for his classes, but if we get in I'm taking him tomorrow in an "M" class, which would be almost identical to the St George if they asked for 3-time changes. Tuesday Double Up and Countess will go in the St George, then Wednesday we all make our Intermediare 1 debut. 

After riding Thursday morning I'll drive down to Germany to do a little business in Münster, then it's off to the Hanoverian auction Friday afternoon to help another client. There are a lot of good horses, and I'm looking forward to another auction experience.

It will be a busy week but I'm excited. Luckily my jet-lag makes me want to wake up at 5:00 a.m., so it's helping me get things done. 

Yesterday I landed back in Denmark after an amazing, busy time in Canada. I had 10 days of teaching and enjoyed every single lesson. Seriously, every single one. There are some in particular that blew me away, but every single rider worked hard, as did the horses, and that kind of dedication and enthusiasm makes me love my job! To all those that participated, thank you for being awesome. 

I have a few things in mind to write about, but I'm still jet-lagged and foggy in my brain, so I'll just leave you with two links today.

Learning Never Stops No Matter How Successful One is in the Show Ring A great article by Lendon Gray.  

So You Want To Be a Working Student? A magnificent, award-worthy piece of journalism by... me.  

The tie-in for these two is EDUCATION. You can never get enough. I feel the same way about coffee right now, so I'm off. Cheers!

Here I am in sunny, warm Canada, about half-way through my vacation. It's another working-holiday for me; I've taught five days of lessons, then after a lovely day off today I will teach another five days starting tomorrow. As usual I've got an amazing group of enthusiastic and dedicated riders who make my job fun and easy! 

I've taught somewhere between 10-15 different combinations so far (I haven't looked it up), sometimes up to 11 in one day. It's always a concern to me to make each lesson tailored to the horse and rider in front of me now; there's nothing worse than getting the same lesson as the last four rides before you just because the instructor gets hung up on one idea. I know I have taught bad lessons in the past, and I'm sure there will be more in the future - I'm only human after all. Those bad lessons haunt me though; I take it pretty seriously when people hand over their hard-earned money for my advice, and I want to make the experience worth it. 

Of course there are basics that need addressing in most lessons - forward, bending, and more forward and more bending are the things that I usually nag most of my riders about. But after that most riders have their own position weaknesses that need individual attention, and every horse and rider combination will need different exercises and homework to help them progress. 

However, once in a while I figure out a way to explain something in a way that most people can relate to. I hate repeating myself lesson after lesson, but if I've come up with a winner analogy or image, I'm going to use it until something better comes to mind. 

The past couple days the following idea developed, and I hope it makes sense to you. In an effort to effectively describe how to really follow the contact of a horse, whether unsteady in the bridle or pretty easy, I started talking about the balance in the reins. Picking an arbitrary number, I said that we can imagine that the contact is 4 pounds of pressure in total; ideally we want 2 perfect pounds in each hand. The truth is that most of the times it's 3 in the left to 1 in the right, or 3.9 in the right to .1 in the left. On a GREAT ride it might be 2.1 to 1.9, but it's a very rare occasion to have perfectly even contact for more than a split second. 

The idea of the shifting weight on an old fashioned balancing scale evolved into carrying trays of drinks (I've had experience as a very bad waitress, so I know the feeling).  So, imagine you are working a busy shift in the restaurant and you have to carry two full trays of drinks from the bar over to your table on the other side of the building, out on the patio. You have tall glasses, short glasses, hot and cold drinks, all balanced nicely on  your full, round trays. You get your left hand flat under the middle of one tray and then someone loads the other tray balanced over your right hand. Now off you go. Oh, and you're in a hurry because a slow waitress doesn't make big tips. 

Carrying these two trays, you have to walk down a few stairs, dodging through tables, avoiding hurrying busboys and waitresses, stopping suddenly for wild children, almost losing your balance when you start to slip on a napkin left on the tile floor, you must half-turn and hip-check the patio door open hard enough to pass through, and then you finally come to your table, bend nicely at the knees and in perfect balance slide the trays on to the table. Voila.

Imagine all the balance required for that! The very quick pressure adjustments with your fingers pressing against the tray, the bending of the elbows, the raising and lowering of the hands, the flexibility and absorption of movement in the waist… it's sounds and surely is exhausting. It takes a certain amount of muscle strength, and at the beginning you might need to take a break because your muscles are shaking and tired. You need a certain type of strength, but brute force won't stop you from dropping the trays if you get out of balance. 

Funny enough, it's really not that much different from holding a steady conversation with your horse's mouth. And in both situations you are bound to start off slow and make a lot of messy mistakes until you get more strength and confidence in the balancing act. 

Every time you start a transition and your horse looses his positioning or gets stiff in one side; when you ask for a counter-canter and he gets really strong in his right rein just before breaking into trot or changing up front; when your horse will not maintain a steady position; or when you just can't keep a rhythm in the trot. If you focus very carefully on the balance of both reins, the feeling of refusing to lose even a single "drop" of contact, these problems might become easier.

I really think contact is perhaps the hardest part of good riding, since it is always changing. Maybe this analogy will simplify it a little? I hope this makes some sense "on paper" anyway. 

Keeping with the theme of today, I sign off with a "Cheers!"